The Long Way Home(100)

“You think he’s only pretending to like me, as an excuse to get close to us.”

Gamache remained silent.

“You think I’m not reason enough for a man to close up shop and join us?”

“I’ve seen how he looks at you,” said Gamache. “How he’s drawn to you. And you to him.”

“Go on.”

“I don’t think it’s a complete lie.”

“Not a complete one. How nice.”

But Gamache, while trying to be gentle, wasn’t going to be baited. “We need to explore all possibilities.”

“Such as?”

“Chartrand knew No Man,” said Gamache. “I think it’s possible he was a member of his community, or cult, or whatever it was. I think it might even have been Chartrand who told Peter about Tabaquen. And sent him there.”

“That’s no crime, Armand. You’re turning it into something sinister.”

“You’re right,” Gamache admitted. “If Peter asked about No Man and Chartrand told him where to find him, there’s absolutely nothing sinister about it. In fact, it was doing Peter a favor. Except—”

“What?”

“If that’s what Chartrand did, why not tell us?”

That stopped Clara.

“Why keep it a secret, Clara? What’s he trying to hide?”

Clara was quiet for a moment. In the silence they could hear Jean-Guy calling to them.

“You asked why Marcel would join us, but you haven’t asked why I agreed.”

“I thought—”

“You thought I’d lost my heart to him? The lonely woman, vulnerable to a little attention? Do you really think that’s likely?”

“Well, now I don’t,” he said, and was so clearly embarrassed Clara smiled.

Jean-Guy was waving frantically from the dock and Myrna was standing in the middle of the gangway, refusing to move for the sailors.

“If Marcel knew where Peter went and didn’t tell us, it’s because he wanted to keep us away from Tabaquen,” said Clara. “He might be keeping an eye on us, but I’m watching him too. That’s why I wanted him with us.”

She turned and started walking rapidly toward the quai, but before she did she looked back and said, “And I am reason enough, Armand, for a man to give up everything.”





THIRTY-FIVE

“Huh,” said Gamache.

The sun was setting and their passage so far had been fairly smooth. The storm predicted by the pilot was ahead of them.

At the sound of Gamache’s grunt, Jean-Guy shifted his gaze to the Chief. Beauvoir had been looking at the window. Not through it, but at it. At his own reflection.

“What is it?” Beauvoir asked.

Gamache looked from his device to Beauvoir. It was difficult not to be distracted by the sou’wester. The hat sat at a jaunty angle, manipulated, shifted, arranged over the past half hour to appear as though Jean-Guy had simply grabbed it off a peg and crammed it onto his head as the skipper cried, “Thar she blows.”

“Very you, matey.”

“Have you ever been to sea, Billy?” Beauvoir leered at Gamache.

“What is it with you and elderly women anyway?” Gamache asked.

Beauvoir took the hat off and placed it on his knee.

“I think they know I don’t see them as elderly. Just people.”

And Gamache knew it was true.

“Just as I’ll never see Annie as old. Even though we will be. One day.”

And Gamache hoped that too was true. He looked at Beauvoir, beside him on the bench, and saw him decades from now. Sitting with Annie on the sofa. In what would be their home, their dwelling place, in Three Pines. Reading. Old and gray and by the fire. Annie and Jean-Guy. And their children. And grandchildren.

The days of their togetherness.

Just as he and Reine-Marie were having theirs. Until this.

Beauvoir gestured toward the device in Gamache’s hand. “What is it?”

“Pardon?”

“You were reading a message?” Beauvoir suggested.

“Ah, oui. From the S?reté in Baie-Saint-Paul. The sniffer dogs found something.”

Beauvoir shifted on the hard bench so that he was looking directly at the Chief.

“A corpse?”

“No, not yet. It was a metal box, with cardboard rolls inside, like the one that Peter’s canvases came in. They were empty. Except for some powder.”

“Heroin? Coke?”

“Captain Nadeau’s having it tested.”

Gamache looked at the windows, wet with spray. It was dark now, and all he could see was the lit bow of the Loup de Mer. “Was the commune really a meth lab? Was the art a cover to distribute drugs?”

“We already know that heroin and cocaine come into Québec by boat,” said Beauvoir. “It’s almost impossible to stop.”

Gamache nodded. “Suppose it gets off-loaded in Baie-Saint-Paul, taken to No Man’s community in the woods—”

“That would explain why it was in the woods,” said Beauvoir. “And not overlooking the river, where the other artists’ colonies set up. They didn’t want a view, what they wanted was privacy, and warning if anyone approached.”